


Storms

by magikfanfic



Category: Runaways (Comics), Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Fluff, mentions of child abuse, mishmash of comic and tv canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-11 02:58:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15305940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magikfanfic/pseuds/magikfanfic
Summary: Gert has always loved storms.





	Storms

Gert learns that Chase is a cuddler and avidly so to a degree that could be unnerving if it weren’t adorable. (This, she’ll think later, is the moment she should have realized that she was doomed wherein doomed means fallen, smitten, struck. Captivated. In love. A long list of words that Gert Yorkes never planned to use for herself. Funny how things change. In an instant. In a flash. With a kiss. But not like a joke, more like the sound of a chest full of keys falling down the stairs in a house full of panicky murderers. She keeps expecting her mind to rebel. She keeps expecting her heart to stop. She keeps expecting him to wake up and realize she’s not what he wants. Whenever he stirs, though, he just pulls her closer.)

At first, it’s just in sleep. He holds her hand, throws a long leg over hers, cradles her, always protective, always there. And always as gentle as the whisper of wind through the trees. She knows he worries about what might be locked in his blood, in his brain, in his hands, the raw anger learned from a man who did not deserve such a son. Gert trusts him, though, even when he cannot trust himself. Chase could hurt things so easily, accidentally, but she remembers him young, the only one of their group who never squashed the fireflies, the first to turn them loose again. It says a lot about who he is even when he won’t see it himself.

Chase holds her in the night, big spoon always, his back to the door or the window, whatever he perceives is the biggest threat in the room. He mumbles in his sleep, constantly talking, but it’s okay because Gert has never been able to sleep in perfectly quiet rooms and the sound of his voice, muttering, arguing, bantering, sleep heavy, is the best thing she knows, better than learning any drum solo, better than any punk anthem. Chase’s voice, dream-laden, whispering her name may be the closest she gets to believing in god.

He stirs sometimes, troubled, discontent, and she’ll run fingers through his hair and sing until he calms again. In sleep, Chase has the face of the boy she remembers, somber and sad, the boy with bruises down his arms from lacrosse practice, which they know now was a lie. Of all their parents, she hates Victor the most and hates him for Chase as well since he cannot bring himself to. She understands. A little. A bit. Enough not to push him, which is saying something because she pushes in everything.

Chase cuddles up to her like he is freezing and she is fire. Gert feels too cold to warm him, too logical, too cross, too argumentative. Surely he needs softer, sugar instead of salt, but he loves her; she loves him. He curls his legs behind her own and they tell stories in the night until they fall asleep. Chase has never been dumb, a carefully orchestrated facade, the only real rebellion he had against his father, itself a problem because there’s a line between ignored and a disappointment and a punishment waiting on the wrong side of either. (He flinches when people raise their voices or their hands too quickly. Gert tries to enforce steady tones.) His stories are full of wonder, the same as from when he was a boy, dragons, and knights, and escape. Gert’s are usually about betrayal, revenge, facing up to adversaries instead of slipping away.

It doesn’t take long for the nightly habit of touching to bleed into the daylight. His hand on her shoulder, her back, fingers laced together, arm wound round her, lips brushed across her neck, hip pressed to her leg like if he breaks contact she’ll disappear. It seems they both worry about the other fading away, and that’s hard for her to process, that he’s as scared of losing her as she is of losing him. Except he is, and it’s as obvious as lightning. It’s okay, though; Gert has always loved storms.


End file.
